From the Ground up: Ecofeminism and Ecological Economics

Speaking from the margins, ecofeminist analysis exposes many of the assumptions of neoclassical economics as gender biased and as anti-ecological. It identifies the abstract individual of neoclassical economics as a privileged male individual whose apparent ‘autonomy’ is predicated on the oppression of women, marginal people and nature. Thus ecofeminists tell a different story about economic man — from the grounds of others' experience up. Ecofeminism points to the limits of models of sustainability built on extending market rationality to non-market spheres of life. Ecofeminist economics contains a creative tension between a commitment to social justice and a determination not to colonize the wild.